Fortinet on Four Financial Theft Malicious Programs for Q4-2012

According to Fortinet Security Company's new threat report, during Q4-2012, there were 4 different kinds of malicious programs that concentrated on stealing financial data, along with a surge in tools that hacktivists used for scanning server vulnerabilities.

Specifically, the data from Fortinet shows that during October-December 2012, four malicious strains increased in operation from month to month, growing with respect to their general activity over too brief a time such as 24-hrs to seven days.

A particular strain pretended to be an update for Adobe's Flash as it hijacked login credentials. Known as Simda.B, it let cyber-crooks gain admission into social networking accounts as well as many more Web-based accounts that further enabled to propagate its own self. A highly popular target Simda chose was 'credentials of financial A/Cs' for stealing funds.

Another strain was phony anti-virus software called FakeAlert.D, which notified the user that viruses had infected his PC. The particular pop-up box containing the notification appeared highly persuasive while encouraged end-users to make a fee payment and obtain the software (a malware), which pledged it would eradicate the viruses.

Worryingly, Fortinet's malware strains as well suggest a rise in ransomware. The security company particularly observed the ransom malware Ransom.BE78 that blocked end-users from seeing own data on their computers.

Moreover, there was the Zbot.ANQ sample, infamous ZeuS' client-side element, which could tap the entire information cyber-crooks required for reaching the bank accounts of their victims.

During Q4-2012, Fortinet also observed that the Romanian hackers developed ZmEu showed high activity scale as it efficaciously located the servers uncomplicated to hijack. The security company states that the scale of ZmEu's activity grew nine-fold from September to December 2012.

Senior Manager Guillaume Lovet of the Threat Response Team at Fortinet Labs explained that the activity hike indicated certain increased enthusiasm by hacktivist gangs towards enabling different activist or rebellious movements globally. The Fortinet researchers expected that there would be continuation in such scanning operations at increased levels while hacktivists chased a largely rising number of reasons as well as hyped their successes, Lovet added. Softpedia.com published this dated February 5, 2013.